Jun 24 2006, 6:04 pm - By wabbit268

My life has been marked by the confounding love of God. I was born and raised in CA until I was 16. I then moved in with my aunt and uncle in GA. I became a Christian 6 months later. My parents divorced when I was one. My father remarried 3 times and has remained married to Heather for 8 years now. My mother never remarried. I like to joke that she was making up for my Dad. My testimony in not just of my own journey, but that of my family. My childhood was marred by abuse (step-mom) and neglect. The earliest years of my life (1-12) taught me one thing: I was worthless. By the time I was 13, I rarely saw my father and I was very depressed. My parents loved me and I knew this, but that still did not stem the tide of hurt and anger that was in my heart. I wanted to die. I set myself to it multiple times when I came home from school. I came home, grabbed a knife from the rack and put it to my throat. I thought about the how I wouldn't have to feel so horrible anymore; the pain would just go away. Thankfully, I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring that kind of hurt to my mother or father. But things just got worse. I spiraled more and more into depression and anger until my mom finally sent me to a youth intervention program when I was 16. And here is the picture of my family. My mom had absorbed herself in her work, my Father was making a new life for himself in Utah having been baptized into the Mormon Church. My sister had broken up with the girl she had been dating and ran off to Washington. And there I was at a camp with other "troubled teens." That camp last 7 weeks. It was manual labor and group therapy. It did teach me one thing. I am responsible for myself. If I want to be different I have to do it. I can't control everything only how I respond and act. So upon discussion, my mother and I felt it best if I move to GA to get a new start on life. My aunt and uncle are Christians and they felt the lord's leaning for them to take me in. What a change. I came from a home with few rules, more like guidelines. With Jeff and Ileen I had more rules than I knew what to do with. Chores, responsibility? I mean c'mon.... ;) My aunt got me involved with a different youth group every night of the week. I finally settled on one. It was there that I became a Christian. What happened next I can only attribute to God. I still struggled with the bottled up rage inside me. Anger against my father, my step-mother, and my peers who had made fun of me for so many years for being overweight. This anger/sorrow I couldn't seem to shake. I felt it in my chest like a weight. And then one night I fell to my knees sobbing. I didn't want to carry this anymore. I heard a quiet voice say, "Forgive them." "No!" was my response. They hurt me. It wasn't my fault, it was theirs. I argued for a few minutes until I gave in. I forgave them all by name. Sobbing on all fours, I rested in the Lord and forgave everyone. I walked out that night with that weight gone. I finished High school and went onto college. So many things have happened since from death to relationships, but I won't get into that now. What you should know is that my mom saw the change in my life and decided to join a Christian women's counseling group. My freshman year in college my sister married Steve and they both were into drugs they separated after 6 months. My sister moved in with my mom and eventually began attending the women's group with her. My sophomore year in college my Dad, upon a Christmas visit, saw the change in my mother and decided that Heather would begin attending church (they left the Mormon Church by this time). My father rededicated his life to Christ and led Heather to the lord. My sister became a Christian that same month. 4 months later Steve (my bro-in-law) became a Christian. And now I am about to begin seminary in FL, my dad is an associate pastor at a Baptist church in Utah, Heather just wrote a book about Mormonism(which she was raised in), Sarah and Steve are about to have a baby and are doing just fine. We struggle with sin and still have things to work out, but whenever I talk to my family or think about them, I just thank God for the richness of his mercy that he would unite a family as far-gone as we were. And a last note. I find it interesting that I still can feel the pain which I spoke of earlier. Not in a crushing way, but I feel it is a reminder of the grace and mercy of God. As Jacob had his limp, and Paul his thorn, I have this great wealth of emotion that reminds very sweetly of the warm embrace that belongs to Christ. And so I continue to rest and to live for Christ, because truly as life may have taught me early on that I was worthless, Christ has shown me that I worth so much and he is worth living for.

Jun 25 2006, 7:39 pm - Replied by: Courage_in_the_Fire

Praise the Lord! His grace is sufficient. I have been blessed by reading your testimony. Isn't God Awesome!

Dec 17 2006, 6:28 pm - Replied by: windwalker

        This blog is to praise my father in heaven. He did for me what no one else could have done. He brought me from as close to death as I could have put myself. My name is Kenneth Brennan ,I was such an alcoholic that even today I  am going through surgeries and test , to see if my liver is even strong enough to handle the rest of my life . Was drinking beer as fast as I could buy it. Then when that wasn’t working for me to feel the numbness, I started using whiskey. That worked a bit longer, but was destroying my insides, but at the time I did not think about that. I finnaly got to a point where I could not handle the pressures that came with forgetting my responsibilities. And was convinced to give to god to clean up. When I finally had the trust to give it up to him, he took it and wiped all the pain away. And now he has blessed me with awesome little women that have seen what alcohol can do to a person, yet still has stuck with me through all this. I could not have found some one like her on my own. He has also helped me to over come all of the things that I was neglecting to fix.  Like child support issues, relationships with other family members , ect. So all of this would have never been possible without my LORD  and sovior .

 

            &nb sp;                     &nb sp;           I OWE YOU MY LIFE LORD GOD……..